Boehner plans new Obamacare votes

Speaker John Boehner is planning for a number of votes to continue to chip away at Obamacare, an attempt to dissuade Republicans from urging a government shutdown if the law is funded.

Over the next few months, the House will vote to require verification for health care subsidies, stop the Independent Payment Advisory Board and eliminate funding streams, according to a source in the closed House Republican Conference meeting where he announced the strategy.

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The subtext of the leadership strategy is that they think it’s insane to shut down the government in an effort to defund the health care law. Boehner warned his leadership colleagues Tuesday of the political danger of a government shutdown — Republicans could even lose the majority if they shut down the government, he said. Boehner is, however, open to using the government funding debate to tweaks parts of the law.

In public, Boehner refused to directly comment on the strategy, which is being promoted by high-profile Senate Republicans like Ted Cruz (Texas), Mike Lee (Utah) and Marco Rubio (Fla.).

Asked directly after the strategy meeting how he feels about holding up government funding to starve Obamacare, Boehner said, “we’ve made no decisions about how we’re going to proceed with the” continuing resolution, which will needs to be passed by the end of September to avoid a government shut down. He said he didn’t know whether the government funding bill could be used to defund implementation of the law.

House Republican leadership has been privately grumbling that those who want to shut down the government to defund the law haven’t thought through the strategy.

It’s the path GOP leadership has taken all along — and they think it’s working.

Boehner told his Republican colleagues that House votes to delay the individual and employee mandate marked “arguably been the most important moment in the three years since the law was signed.” Boehner reminded his colleagues that 35 Democrats voted to delay the employer mandate and 22 voted to get rid of the individual mandate. President Barack Obama has signed into law a few tweaks of the act as well.

“The president is fond of saying these Obamacare votes are ‘meaningless’ – but I’d remind you he’s already signed seven bills repealing or delaying parts of the law,” Boehner said, according to a source in the meeting.

“We’ll have to stick together and communicate. But this strategy is achievable. And it’s our best shot at actually getting rid of Obamacare,” he said. “Executing this strategy doesn’t mean we can’t do other things on Obamacare as well. This is designed to be a strategy we can build on.”